SUPERBRANDS 2012

RoohAfza is the drink four generations of Indians have grown up with. First conceived in 1907, its formula
has remained unchanged through these 105 years. Today, the brand is re-jigging its marketing strategy,
penetrating into smaller towns, discovering its potency as an additive to non-alcoholic beverages and
delicious desserts and driving into new geographies. Already a C200 crore, 14 million litre-per-year brand,
RoohAfza expects to continue to grow the market and position itself not just as a summer drink but a
natural refresher that ought to be consumed throughout the year.
outreach initiatives have resulted in
the brand registering a cumulative
annual growth rate (CAGR) in excess
of 20%, over the last four years.
Traditionally, RoohAfza has had two
chinks in its otherwise sturdy armour.
The bulk of its sales have been
concentrated in the north and the
west with modest contributions from
the other two zones. The other is that
vey substantially its sales are summer
driven. However, RoohAfza is
correcting this skew. With a 360degree communications strategy now
in place, the brand is focussing on
newer geographies where the
category contribution is high. It is also
increasing the depth of its distribution
in tier III and tier IV towns of its
stronghold bastions.
While the brand has corrected a
small anomaly in the Indian market its
export business continues to flourish.
RoohAfza is exported to more than
22 markets including the US, the UK,
France, Germany, Japan, Russia,
Canada and several countries of the
Middle East.

Market
It was a time when princely states held
sway, canopied chariots with paired horses
cantered down broad streets, electric
power was the preserve of the wealthy and
12 pies made an anna. In those days of
indifference, a concoction was prepared
that, no one had reason to believe, would
one day become a powerful brand revered
by generations and consumed by millions.
The concoction is neither a cola nor a
white or brown beverage; it is not
endorsed by Shah Rukh Khan or Amitabh
Bachchan. It lacks the ready-to-drink
convenience of fruit juices. Forty years older
than independent India and well past its
centenary, RoohAfza is still going strong.
With an annual consumption of 14 million
litres and a reach in more than 2 million
households RoohAfza, today, commands
50% market share of the C400 crore
(US$ 72.70 million) powdered soft drinks and
liquid concentrates market (Source: industry
estimates).
Increasing consumer consciousness towards
natural products coupled with contemporary
media campaigns and innovative consumer
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Achievements
There arent many brands worldwide which can
boast of an unchanged recipe that goes back a
century and more. RoohAfza is one such brand.
Today, 105 years after launch it continues to
delight taste buds, rejuvenate the spirit and
invigorate the mind with its magical fragrance
and the rich goodness of natural herbs and fruit.
In 2007, Saveur magazine of the US, a worldrenowned authority on food and leisure, had
published a well-researched list of 100 of the
worlds favourite food brands. In this august
listing, RoohAfza was ranked tenth. In

ROOHAFZA

hamdard.com

superbrandsindia.com

elaborating on the award, Saveur called

RoohAfza a heavenly elixir attributing this
claim to its fine quality and sheer excellence.
RoohAfza was also presented the prestigious
Brand Equity award by the PHD Chamber of
Commerce in 2002.
The core reason why the brand continues to
stay relevant to existing users is primarily
because of three attributes: unmatched taste, its
unique natural refreshment proposition and
brand equity built over more than four
generations of users. In today's day and age
while there are innumerable drink formats
available to consumers RoohAfza presents a
healthier, fat-free and a zero cholesterol option.
Other benefits like maintaining the water
balance and guarding the
body against dehydration
and heat stroke are some
of the other reasons why
people reach out for a
chilled glass of RoohAfza.

History
RoohAfza was
developed in 1907 by
the pioneer Unani
physician, Hakim Hafiz
Abdul Majeed. Its
unique formulation
comprising sixteen
herbs and the pure
juice of such
quenchers and
healers as kasni,
munnaqa,
pineapple,
orange, sandal
safed and khurfa,
despite advances
in medicine,
remains
unchanged.
In the early
20th century,
marketing
strategies and
insights into
human behaviour
were still in their
infancy. The
concept of
uniformity as a
tool for brand
development had
not fully evolved.

As a result,
marketable
syrups did with
used bottles of
any shape and
size. RoohAfza
brought some
system in the
market. It was the
first brand to
recognise the
theory of
standardisation
and introduced
transparent
bottles of
uniform shape
and size.
RoohAfza also
had a uniform label. Designed by a talented
professional artist, Mirza Noor Ahmad, the label
was printed in multi-colour by the Bolton Press
in Bombay. Today, RoohAfza packaging retains
the same broad look as it did a hundred years
ago but the design has been re-jigged a bit and
presents a friendlier ambience.
With just one bottling plant in Old Delhi
where RoohAfza bottles were filled manually
and the label pasted by hand, RoohAfza now
has a fully-automated bottling plant in
Ghaziabad, Uttar Pradesh and two plants in
Manesar, Haryana.
In undivided India, RoohAfza was
available in north, central, west and east
India and what are now Pakistan and
Bangladesh.

Product
RoohAfza has always been positioned as a
drink to be enjoyed together with family
and friends. The 700ml bottle of the scarlethued refresher priced at C105 (US$ 1.90) is
easily identifiable on grocer's shelves with
its neck rings and a label showing a
bouquet of carrots, mint leaves, white
spinach, watermelon, endive, khas-khas
grass, coriander seeds and the distillate
of rosa damascena.
Traditionally, RoohAfza has been used
and enjoyed mostly as a sharbat. Just a
couple of table spoon in a glass of cold or plain
water and a refreshing drink, full of nature's
goodness, is ready to be drunk. In the new
millennium, RoohAfza has extended its original
consumption franchise and is now being
increasingly used as an additive in mocktails and
desserts.

Recent Developments
RoohAfza has taken its brand extension
seriously. This timeless brand is now undergoing
a contemporary makeover in order to go
beyond a regular beverage. The company is

looking at a twin-track strategy: both off-premise

(out-of-home) consumption and on-premise (at
home) usage. To stretch consumption from just
summer months to around the year, RoohAfza is
revamping brand imagery along with reenforcement of its brand proposition.
With a strong hold in markets like Delhi,
Punjab, Uttar Pradesh, Haryana, Rajasthan,
Maharashtra and Madhya Pradesh, RoohAfza is
now focussing on extending its active
distribution. To make its presence felt in the
southern markets RoohAfza, for the first time,
launched PET bottles as a pilot project in the
selected cities of Hyderabad and Bengaluru.
Additionally, keeping pace with modern needs
RoohAfza is also toying with the idea of
RoohAfza dispensing machines one of
which is already operational at its
headquarters in Delhi.
The brand has also observed that todays
children are not just key consumers, they are
also key influencers in the purchase of a natural
drink like RoohAfza. Comprising some 35% of
the total population of India, children thus
become important audiences for targeted
communications.
According to the New Gen syndicated study
conducted by Cartoon Network India, it was
determined that 41% of all parents go
completely by the opinions kids have
when it comes to choosing a drink
or a juice. The first step in
exploiting this knowledge is
RoohAfzas new television
commercial that seeks to
reach out to children and
their parents. Bringing out
the very core property of
RoohAfza as a refreshing
drink, the current
television commercial
details out the products
naturalness and emphasises
that the brand has no
artificial flavours, no fat and
no cholesterol all
pointers to the huge health
qualities RoohAfza
possesses.
Completing 105 years of
existence, RoohAfza has drawn up a fresh new
communications strategy to create relevance to
the milk-shy, cola-loving pre-teens of today.

Promotion
The late 1990s and the early 2000s were a
difficult time for RoohAfza. Buffeted by
carbonated beverages and fruit-based drinks,
RoohAfza lost ground and market share. But the
truth was that RoohAfza was an outstanding
product. It, therefore, had no business to go into
a decline. The way to a resurgence was simple:
the brand had to reposition itself and pick up
the tangled threads. RoohAfza did
just that. It reinvented and refreshed
the proposition and brought in Juhi
Chawla as its brand ambassador. The
results were magical. RoohAfza
fought back into reckoning, regaining
its leadership and stamping its
authority on a market it had held
sway over for nearly 100 years.
It was now time to push the
envelope further. In 2009, cookbook
author Nita Mehta was
commissioned to devise 30 recipes
inspired by RoohAfza. The recipe
book, The Relishing Recipes from
RoohAfza, reached millions of

homes. This gave the brand a broader base and

ensured that its consumption went beyond just
the summer months. In 2011, an ad campaign
was launched which projected RoohAfza as a
great additive for mocktails and desserts. To
support this campaign mocktail tasting counters
at shopping malls were setup in Delhi, Mumbai,
Bengaluru, Hyderabad, Ahmedabad, Kanpur,
Lucknow and Jaipur. RoohAfza-on-wheels was
another innovation. Under this scheme,
RoohAfza vans travelled across 35 markets in
the hindi belt sampling and selling innovative
and tasty desserts and mocktails prepared using
RoohAfza. The initiative is expected to give a
further impetus to the brand and help it anchor
new markets.

Brand Values
The Persian name RoohAfza literally means
One that enhances the spirit and uplifts the
soul. For more than a century this is exactly
what the brand has done. Today, it stands at the
threshold of a new era of growth and
development. It expects to push its advantage of
a pure herbal drink in a world where purity has
taken a beating and chemicals are increasingly
the order of the day. In this world, RoohAfza
stands out as a beacon of all that was once
good and chaste.

Things you didnt know about

RoohAfza
RoohAfza was formulated 105 years ago and
has remained unchanged since then
During its initial years RoohAfza was sold in
used wine bottles
Every second, fifteen people somewhere in
the world refresh themselves with a glass of
RoohAfza
RoohAfza is, perhaps, the only beverage in
the world which has lyrics composed
extolling its virtues. The author was the
eminent poet, Sail Dehlavi

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